teachings of the buddha....

I just read this in my "Teachings of the Buddha" book, and I really liked it and feel like it's an important point of view to consider...it's part of a poem called "No Self"::

The instructed disciple of the Noble Ones beholds of material shape, feeling, perception, the impulses, or consciousness: "This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self." So that when the material shape, feeling, perception, the impulses, or consciousness change and become otherwise there arise not from him grief, sorrow, suffering, lamentation, and despair.

Know that you are of no more material value than your surroundings. Your emotions are not YOU. You do not belong to yourself. You belong to the universe. Once you let go of the physical attachment to yourself, you let go of the illusion that thought and emotion defines you as a human....it is what drives you. Once you accept that this drive is purely within the illusion of you having your own self, you will no long allow yourself to be driven by negativity....because your negativity doesn't even exist enough for it to push you one way or another.

I love my Buddha book...it always has exactly what I need to read, when I need to read it... :)